Re: Canon dSLR Wish List?

My wish list is short - improved sensors with less noise and more dynamic range. Personally I don't care for touchscreens. I want my camera to have a viewfinder. I would like to have a small camera for a backup and for my wife to use and was looking forward to the EOS-M but the lack of a viewfinder has me looking at different manufacturers. At least the EOS-M should have had an articulated screen.

I ignored the 5D2 for the AF being poor and way too centre-ed, and 1Dx for being little different to 1D4 for a huge premium.

Here is what I hope in the 1Dx MkII or 5D Mk4, but most lines apply to any camera in the line (including EOS M) :

Killer features : (because they make the photo possible or not)

- Cross-type AF points well spread out in the viewfinder including top corners (1D3/4 like, or as close to that as possible), and cross type on the outside (not like 5D3 or 1Dx). To me, that is super-important, because I almost never shoot my subjects in the center, and this is why I love the 1D4. (I use swallow DOF and subjects are moving so no recomposing possible).

Must have features : (because the photo will be of higher quality)

- Affordable price !

- Better quality at lower ISO. I do not care so much about 10k+ ISO, I want super clean 3200 ISO with great DR. I guess 99% of all images shot worldwide are at or below this level anyway.

- Stabilized sensor (cost almost nothings, works well, is reliable, use little energy, stabilize primes and wide angle that do not have IS, automatic turn off when IS is available). I’d still love IS, but you have no IS on 14mm, TS-Es, 24mm, 85mm etc. Sony can do all that.

- MP at least at the 1D4 density (ie ~25+ for FF). D800 level would be nice to have, 1Dx is too low. I want the lens to be the resolution bottleneck, not the lens plus the sensor on top.

- Better joystick for a quick AF point selection, more precise and easier to use. This thing is vital but very small and hard to use if you want to switch the AF point from bottom right to top left as fast as a dancer is moving (it’s not about tracking his face, it’s about having a different composition). Eye based AF selection might be the answer ...

- Red point AF so I can see where I focus in challenging conditions ! Why taking that away ?

- Big, comfortable viewfinder, there is no too big here. The viewfinders from the film age still seems more comfortable and bigger to me.

Great to have features : (because the photo will be easier to shoot)

- Wifi with full remote control (not like EOS M who can be tethered but only for image display not remote control … why cripple it ? it won’t go on my helicopter now). 6D looks good so far.

- Adjustable auto ISO (I have to use cfn for min-max ISO and min-max shutter speed to micro manage it). Easy to add.

- Bigger screen. You can reduce the size of the coding wheel a lot to get more space. The coding wheel is very huge despite having a simple function and little impact in the shooting. The joystick is way smaller and way more important. You can also extend the screen vertically and exchange some buttons with touchscreen instead.

- More items in MyMenu. Super easy to add.

- Option for autoretract the 85II when switching camera off. Easy to add.

- More flexible file naming (I use “A-123-456” where 123456 is the photo number). Easy to add.

- Artificial horizon like Sony has. Easy to add.

- Silent shutter in 1D series, like 5D3 or better. Fully silent would be best and much appreciated for concerts and dance etc.

- 5k video (to process a good 4K). GoPro can do it very well in that regard, we pay much more for much less.

- 120+fps in video (at least in 1080). Superhigh speed welcome.

- Focus peaking in live view and video

- Uncompressed clean hDMI output

- RAW video

- 8fps is a minimum in photo (this is for 5D3)

- Possibility to lock the body and lens (username inside the lens) with a password, or store the owner name in a non-erasable memory (with 20 blanks for resell). Owner of body and lens to be shown at start up, history very easily available. When wifi of USB connected, would automatically update a public (address and contact would be hidden) database where theft could be reported. Would decrease theft a lot, second hand buyers would be able to actively check the history, and theft victims could track down their belonging.

- Look at what Magic Lantern is doing, because this is what we users wants. You should thanks the guys and at least send them free cameras and support them in exchange of integrating some of their features.

And by the way stop putting lame AF on your not-top-of-the-line bodies. The 6D looks like a great body but I can’t recommend it to friends because of the poor, tired AF. Nikon and other brand have much better offering concerning that vital part. 5D2 was already a big disappointment in the AF part.

Overall, stop hiding behind marketing and segmentation to propose crippled cameras, put as much as possible in every single model. Competition is busy, innovating and delivering very very well.

Re: Canon dSLR Wish List?

I think it would be cool if Canon made an app like their EOS remote that worked like an Electronic Clapboard and would send a xml file to the camera from the smart phone or tablet that the photographer could automatically embed on both raw files or video files just like setting a custom whitebalance. A user could enter all the metadata typically found on a clapboard such as scene 1 take 4 along with other normal metadata info such as copyright holder, location, event, subject's name, etc... and have this embeded into at the time of capture. This sure could save some ingesting time.